After all these years, I've finally decided to jump in and begin working toward a Masters Degree. People pursue masters degrees all of the time, but it turns a few heads and raises a few eyebrows at cocktail parties when a lay person seeks to obtain a masters in theology. Theology? Really? Why would you want to do that?
One of the essays I must write for my application process is about the concept that theology is really “Faith seeking understanding.” Some critics see this statement as the claim that somehow through study, one can take their faith and replace it with concrete understanding. This is, of course, ridiculous. Yet "faith seeking understanding" still is a definition of theology that I can reconcile with my own experience, because it does not mean for me that wish to systematically unpack each mystery and define it until it no longer evokes awe, wonder, and humility. It is rather the opposite.
One of my favorite stories, told to me by a Benedictine monk named Father Albert, was of St. Augustine considering the mystery of God by the seashore. He saw a young boy taking buckets of ocean water and carrying it to dump into a small hole. When the saint asked the young boy what he was doing, the boy answered that he was trying to put the ocean into the little hole he had made. St. Augustine replied that this was impossible, the ocean could never fit in such a small space. The child responded, “Neither can you fit God in your little mind.”
I remember considering this story in the quiet of a monastic Basilica as I looked up at the images of the great saints who had spent their lives seeking God’s face. I imagined myself with a little cup in my hand. God is like the ocean, and that little cup is like my mind. I knew I could never “fit” God into myself, but I knew that I could fit into God. So I decided to throw my cup into the ocean.
“Faith seeking understanding” is the decision to dive in to the wide expanses of an ocean that I could never see, know, or explore all at once or ever. The object of my faith is a Creator who has fearfully and wonderfully made us all and who desires us to know Him. I consider my desire to know Him in return and to seek to understand Him etched into my humanity and extending through all eternity. In other words, by this very seeking we anticipate the heavenly reality now and we wiill continue to practice theology even when God is “all in all”[1] and when the “knowledge of the Lord covers the earth like the waters cover the sea.”[2]
[1] 1 Cor 15:28
[2] Hab 2:14
One of the essays I must write for my application process is about the concept that theology is really “Faith seeking understanding.” Some critics see this statement as the claim that somehow through study, one can take their faith and replace it with concrete understanding. This is, of course, ridiculous. Yet "faith seeking understanding" still is a definition of theology that I can reconcile with my own experience, because it does not mean for me that wish to systematically unpack each mystery and define it until it no longer evokes awe, wonder, and humility. It is rather the opposite.
One of my favorite stories, told to me by a Benedictine monk named Father Albert, was of St. Augustine considering the mystery of God by the seashore. He saw a young boy taking buckets of ocean water and carrying it to dump into a small hole. When the saint asked the young boy what he was doing, the boy answered that he was trying to put the ocean into the little hole he had made. St. Augustine replied that this was impossible, the ocean could never fit in such a small space. The child responded, “Neither can you fit God in your little mind.”
I remember considering this story in the quiet of a monastic Basilica as I looked up at the images of the great saints who had spent their lives seeking God’s face. I imagined myself with a little cup in my hand. God is like the ocean, and that little cup is like my mind. I knew I could never “fit” God into myself, but I knew that I could fit into God. So I decided to throw my cup into the ocean.
“Faith seeking understanding” is the decision to dive in to the wide expanses of an ocean that I could never see, know, or explore all at once or ever. The object of my faith is a Creator who has fearfully and wonderfully made us all and who desires us to know Him. I consider my desire to know Him in return and to seek to understand Him etched into my humanity and extending through all eternity. In other words, by this very seeking we anticipate the heavenly reality now and we wiill continue to practice theology even when God is “all in all”[1] and when the “knowledge of the Lord covers the earth like the waters cover the sea.”[2]
[1] 1 Cor 15:28
[2] Hab 2:14
No comments:
Post a Comment